If Toshiba's Kirabook is an answer of sorts to the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the new Satellite P50t is a response to the 15-inch model. It's got a 3840×2160 resolution display, which at 15.6 inches works out to 282 PPI. The demo unit we handled looked and felt a fair bit chunkier than the MacBook Pro, but a Toshiba representative told us the chassis was a body from an older model being used to showcase the display panel, and it would be subject to change.

Toshiba couldn't tell us much on the subject of specs, either, but it was hinted that we can at least expect options for quad-core Intel CPUs and dedicated GPUs, even if those aren't the default configuration options. The display model also integrated a Blu Ray drive, four USB 3.0 ports, a full-size HDMI port, an Ethernet jack, and a backlit keyboard with a number pad. We'll know more about pricing, specifications, and the finalized body of the laptop when the laptop nears its "summer-ish" launch date.

As for the panel itself, Toshiba says the P50t's screen has been color calibrated, and we can verify that it's a very sharp and nice-looking display. Colors and viewing angles are great, and both text and images are as sharp as expected (though as we've written, your experience may vary based on the apps you use and whether they have proper high-PPI display support).

Andrew Cunningham

The Tecra W50 workstation is chunkier but uses workstation-class internals.

Andrew Cunningham

The Tecra W50 workstation is chunkier but uses workstation-class internals.

Andrew Cunningham

The left side of the laptop.

Andrew Cunningham

The right side and a good look at the integrated number pad. The layout on both 4K laptops' keyboards is good, as is key travel.

There were four other laptops in Toshiba's booth that are worth a quick mention. First, the Tecra W50 mobile workstation, which uses the same 15.6-inch, high-resolution 4K display as the P50t but has aesthetics and specs more in line with a traditional workstation laptop. It crams a quad-core Intel processor and dedicated Nvidia Quadro K2100M GPU into a chassis that's more concerned with performance than portability. The finish on the laptop's display was also somewhat less glossy than the more consumer-oriented P50t.

Andrew Cunningham

The unique but unfinished and unnamed Toshiba five-in-one prototype. This is laptop mode.

Andrew Cunningham

The unique but unfinished and unnamed Toshiba five-in-one prototype. This is laptop mode.

Andrew Cunningham

The keyboard separates from the base, leaving a small strip behind that can be used as a stand.

"Canvas" mode, up close. The integrated stylus and Wacom digitizer could make this appealing for those who like pen input.

Andrew Cunningham

The hinge folds 360 degrees like the Lenovo Yoga line and a few others, but the keyboard can be flipped and reattached to keep the keys from resting on the table.

Next up, we saw a unique prototype convertible that Toshiba is billing as a "five-in-one" PC. The keyboard detaches from the screen of the unit, but unlike most designs where lid and base separate at the hinge, there's a small rectangular strip that stays attached to the screen at all times.

The first mode is obviously "laptop" mode, which is self-evident. Next up is "canvas" mode, where the small strip is used to angle the screen toward you at an angle conducive to writing and drawing with the included Wacom stylus. In "presentation/TV" mode, you detach the keyboard, flip the base 180 degrees, and stand the screen up vertically. The final two modes are sort of similar—there's "tablet" mode, in which you completely detach the keyboard, and "convertible tablet" mode in which you fold the hinge all the way around Lenovo Yoga-style. The keyboard can be removed and flipped so that the keys aren't facing outward as you use it, one of our biggest gripes with the otherwise good Yoga design.

The as-yet-unnamed concept is an impressive bit of engineering—for example, the small base attached to the screen is where the CPU and all other system components are stored, while the battery is kept behind the screen. Whether it appeals to you will depend mostly on how you feel about the unusual keyboard positioning. With models that move the keyboard so close to the front edge of the laptop, finding a place to rest your palms can be problematic when the computer is in your lap. There's no trackpad, which has been booted in favor of a small mouse nub and some buttons. There's no release date, pricing, or spec information to share at the moment.

Enlarge/ The Kirabook is getting a promising Haswell refresh. The Ivy Bridge version was what Toshiba had on the floor, but the two should look the same.

Andrew Cunningham

Next, a Haswell-based update to the Kirabook is slated for release in mid-February. The refresh supposedly boosts battery life to about nine hours. Battery life was one of our biggest gripes with the otherwise excellent Ivy Bridge model, and we're hoping to get one of the new models in for testing soon. The base price drops slightly to $1,499, and all models now include touchscreens and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Visually, the new model is basically identical to the old one, which definitely isn't a bad thing.

Finally, because we're always on the lookout for a bargain, we noticed the NB15t, a $380 11.6-inch Windows 8.1 laptop that uses a Bay Trail-based dual-core Celeron CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive while managing to squeeze in a touchscreen and 802.11ac. Those last two features in particular aren't common at this price point. The NB15t is priced just above the latest wave of Chromebooks, and we hope to put it through its paces soon as well.

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"...a Toshiba representative told us the chassis was a body from an older model being used to showcase the display panel, and it would be subject to change. Toshiba couldn't tell us much on the subject of specs, either, but it was hinted that we can at least expect options for quad-core Intel CPUs and dedicated GPUs, even if those aren't the default configuration options."

So basically Toshiba didn't demonstrate a 4k laptop at all, they demonstrated a 4k 15" panel. Sounds like a nice component in theory, but totally meaningless without any context in terms of weight, battery life, price etc.

"...a Toshiba representative told us the chassis was a body from an older model being used to showcase the display panel, and it would be subject to change. Toshiba couldn't tell us much on the subject of specs, either, but it was hinted that we can at least expect options for quad-core Intel CPUs and dedicated GPUs, even if those aren't the default configuration options."

So basically Toshiba didn't demonstrate a 4k laptop at all, they demonstrated a 4k 15" panel. Sounds like a nice component in theory, but totally meaningless without any context in terms of weight, battery life, price etc.

Some context for that statement: usually OEMs say that about any pre-release hardware as an ass-covering maneuver. If they're planning on launching this thing in the summer, it'll almost certainly be very close to what they had on the floor. The materials or fit-and-finish might be different but the chances of it changing drastically are slim. Also note that the W50 4K workstation seems to be closer to final, since they're sharing more about the specs.

I agree that more info about battery life and etc. would be good but you usually can't get that for pre-final hardware from anyone. Looking around at other offerings on the market can give you some idea of what to expect though - even with a high-res panel, given Haswell I wouldn't be surprised to see it hit somewhere in the 6-7 hour range, give or take.

That convertible looks nice. I've always had a second keyboard and mouse when using a laptop at my normal desk, since the ergonomics of laptops suck. But even that isn't ideal as the built-in keyboard usually forces you to put the laptop further back than you would like given the relatively small screen size. This setup looks really nice, and could even be used on travel without lugging extra hardware.

"...a Toshiba representative told us the chassis was a body from an older model being used to showcase the display panel, and it would be subject to change. Toshiba couldn't tell us much on the subject of specs, either, but it was hinted that we can at least expect options for quad-core Intel CPUs and dedicated GPUs, even if those aren't the default configuration options."

So basically Toshiba didn't demonstrate a 4k laptop at all, they demonstrated a 4k 15" panel. Sounds like a nice component in theory, but totally meaningless without any context in terms of weight, battery life, price etc.

Some context for that statement: usually OEMs say that about any pre-release hardware as an ass-covering maneuver. If they're planning on launching this thing in the summer, it'll almost certainly be very close to what they had on the floor. The materials or fit-and-finish might be different but the chances of it changing drastically are slim. Also note that the W50 4K workstation seems to be closer to final, since they're sharing more about the specs.

I agree that more info about battery life and etc. would be good but you usually can't get that for pre-final hardware from anyone. Looking around at other offerings on the market can give you some idea of what to expect though - even with a high-res panel, given Haswell I wouldn't be surprised to see it hit somewhere in the 6-7 hour range, give or take.

Fair enough, and thanks for the reply. Still, to my mind, the pertinent question is not whether you can stick a 15" 4K panel in a laptop, it's whether you can stick it in a laptop at a compelling cost, weight, battery life and so on. "Demonstrating" the product without providing any evidence that you've solved those challenges doesn't seem like much of a demonstration at all.

Edit: Let me add, that I recognize this is standard industry practice. I just get tired of companies presenting the idea of solving an engineering challenge as if they've actually solved the engineering challenge.

If the resolution is beyond what the eye can see in normal use, what's the use for anything other than marketing?

Because the brain can 'see' more than the raw resolution of your eyes. Even though you might not be able to see the pixels directly, they do have an effect on the image that you perceive.

Particularly if said image is animating; the artefacts introduced by aliasing become more noticeable if they're changing over time (such as if a line is rotating with respect to the pixel grid, or the intersection of two lines are moving, etc)

If the resolution is beyond what the eye can see in normal use, what's the use for anything other than marketing?

Because the brain can 'see' more than the raw resolution of your eyes. Even though you might not be able to see the pixels directly, they do have an effect on the image that you perceive.

Digital pixels have very little to do with our analogue eyes. DPI is important to vector based graphics but most media consumed in the laptop space is quite different to what we consume in the desktop space. High DPI is pretty much a necessity for gaming (which is why we have antialiasing in the first place) but the needs drop off pretty quickly for just viewing YouTube videos and basic laptop work.

I find it pretty hard to be excited about 4k laptops while a 20" inch 4k desktop display would be an instant sale to me.

I'm happier than I should be to see the return of a laptop with a trackpoint (or nipple) mouse. I've never found a PC laptop that does trackpads well and would always choose the nipple option if it's available.

I'd rather have the 4K display in a 17" laptop, but I'm mostly just ecstatic to see anything that pushes resolutions up. Sure, maybe 4K is too much, but the 1920x1080 on my current 17" laptop is clearly too low.

As to whether 4K is too much, there are a few different scenarios. When looking at perfectly antialiased photos and videos it may be that it is overkill. However, most of the content that we consume is far from perfectly antialiased. Much of the text that I read on my laptop is made from single-pixel wide lines. How do I make one of those letters 50% bigger? Use 1.5 pixels? With a 4K display and with the text the same physical size those lines would be two pixels wide and it would be possible to make them three pixels wide, and exactly 50% bigger. Without a 4K display it is necessary to use antialiasing, which can be problematic.

Once you start looking at it that way you realize that even 4K on a 17" laptop is not really enough. You either need lots of antialiasing or even higher resolutions.

This sentiment was valid last year. But by now, high resolution laptops are easy to find. A quick search in a webshop showed about 45% of the laptops had a higher resolution. If you want a high resolution you can get it.

Why are they even trying that weird shape shifting thing? By now, we already know a shape shifting design either has to transform into a true tablet or into a true laptop. If it can't get one of them right, it's not going to work.

I welcome any display that pushes up resolution, even if it approaches overkill.The 2560*1440 phone displays that come out this year for phones will make it easier for Oculus to source higher resolution screens for the Rift.4k TVs becoming mainstream will help push the adoption of higher resolution computer monitors.

Higher resolutions make passive stereoscopic 3D better. I know a lot of people don't like 3D, but I quite enjoy it. I thought the 3D in The Hobbit and Frozen was great. I always have 3D enabled on my 3DS.

I used a Cintiq for many years, but its 1600x1200 display was very coarse because my eyes were usually within a foot of the display. I want a huge high-resolution display that's like a drafting table and has multi-touch and pen input.

GPU tech will be pushed more to support these displays in compact devices.

I'd rather have the 4K display in a 17" laptop, but I'm mostly just ecstatic to see anything that pushes resolutions up. Sure, maybe 4K is too much, but the 1920x1080 on my current 17" laptop is clearly too low.

As to whether 4K is too much, there are a few different scenarios. When looking at perfectly antialiased photos and videos it may be that it is overkill. However, most of the content that we consume is far from perfectly antialiased. Much of the text that I read on my laptop is made from single-pixel wide lines. How do I make one of those letters 50% bigger? Use 1.5 pixels? With a 4K display and with the text the same physical size those lines would be two pixels wide and it would be possible to make them three pixels wide, and exactly 50% bigger. Without a 4K display it is necessary to use antialiasing, which can be problematic.

Once you start looking at it that way you realize that even 4K on a 17" laptop is not really enough. You either need lots of antialiasing or even higher resolutions.

I don't know what it's like on OS X, but Windows has ClearType on by default which makes text use more than one pixel for some of their lines. When I turned it off the situation was exactly as you described. The text used one pixel wide lines and when I zoomed in in the browser it doubled in size. With ClearType on the text became thicker, while still at the same size, and when I zoomed in using a browser it magnified by about 1.5 instead of two times.

I'd rather have the 4K display in a 17" laptop, but I'm mostly just ecstatic to see anything that pushes resolutions up. Sure, maybe 4K is too much, but the 1920x1080 on my current 17" laptop is clearly too low.

As to whether 4K is too much, there are a few different scenarios. When looking at perfectly antialiased photos and videos it may be that it is overkill. However, most of the content that we consume is far from perfectly antialiased. Much of the text that I read on my laptop is made from single-pixel wide lines. How do I make one of those letters 50% bigger? Use 1.5 pixels? With a 4K display and with the text the same physical size those lines would be two pixels wide and it would be possible to make them three pixels wide, and exactly 50% bigger. Without a 4K display it is necessary to use antialiasing, which can be problematic.

Once you start looking at it that way you realize that even 4K on a 17" laptop is not really enough. You either need lots of antialiasing or even higher resolutions.

I don't know what it's like on OS X, but Windows has ClearType on by default which makes text use more than one pixel for some of their lines. When I turned it off the situation was exactly as you described. The text used one pixel wide lines and when I zoomed in in the browser it doubled in size. With ClearType on the text became thicker, while still at the same size, and when I zoomed in using a browser it magnified by about 1.5 instead of two times.

I'm running Windows 8.1 (desktop mode) at 1920x1080 on a 15" screen.

OS X uses something similar to ClearType.

Windows adjusts fonts so they line up to pixels, so text looks pretty sharp even on lower resolution displays. OS X renders fonts more accurately, so lines can land between pixels and text looks more blurry. I find that higher resolutions are more important for Apple's method.

But is Windows usable at 4k on such a small screen? I keep hearing bad things about Windows scaling functions when trying to make tiny hit points and text legible on higher density screens. Seems like a waste of power and battery life if the OS is going to be either too small to use or scaled poorly and blurry.

I'd rather have the 4K display in a 17" laptop, but I'm mostly just ecstatic to see anything that pushes resolutions up. Sure, maybe 4K is too much, but the 1920x1080 on my current 17" laptop is clearly too low.

As to whether 4K is too much, there are a few different scenarios. When looking at perfectly antialiased photos and videos it may be that it is overkill. However, most of the content that we consume is far from perfectly antialiased. Much of the text that I read on my laptop is made from single-pixel wide lines. How do I make one of those letters 50% bigger? Use 1.5 pixels? With a 4K display and with the text the same physical size those lines would be two pixels wide and it would be possible to make them three pixels wide, and exactly 50% bigger. Without a 4K display it is necessary to use antialiasing, which can be problematic.

Once you start looking at it that way you realize that even 4K on a 17" laptop is not really enough. You either need lots of antialiasing or even higher resolutions.

Do you have Superman vision? I'm perfectly content with 1080p on my 23"desktop monitor.

If the resolution is beyond what the eye can see in normal use, what's the use for anything other than marketing?

Not sure why this got downvoted. The pixels on this display are invisible at 10". Are you ever going to sit 10" away from a laptop screen? Of course not, but you might be 2' away...which would make 1920x1080 a retina class display. So the answer is, there is almost not MUCH use for it...

...However, there's no disadvantage to having the higher resolution and some people do have better than average eye-sight (with my glasses I have ~20/10 vision and plenty of folks have 20/15 vision). For these people 1080p is not retina class and IMO it's usually better to have it than not. 4k is retina class for basically everybody and it has the added advantage (over in-between resolutions) of being an integer ratio of 1080p. This is a very good thing.

But is Windows usable at 4k on such a small screen? I keep hearing bad things about Windows scaling functions when trying to make tiny hit points and text legible on higher density screens. Seems like a waste of power and battery life if the OS is going to be either too small to use or scaled poorly and blurry.

Windows scaling works quite well (in Win8+)...but 3rd party apps frequently don't support it properly.

Windows scaling isn't perfect of course, but ultra HD is integer scaling, where it's easy for scaling to work (and Windows' scaling works perfectly with integer scaling).

I'm happier than I should be to see the return of a laptop with a trackpoint (or nipple) mouse. I've never found a PC laptop that does trackpads well and would always choose the nipple option if it's available.

Before you get too excited, I have an optical trackpoint on my Vaio Duo 11 and it's total rubbish. Probably the worst-executed detail of the device.

If the resolution is beyond what the eye can see in normal use, what's the use for anything other than marketing?

The human eye CAN see the aliasing. Everyone can. It's why we have to anti-alias fonts and games, and the still often look crappy. With higher DPI displays, we can attack the root of the problem instead of trying to patch on fixes.

The convertible looks interesting I would love to see a tear down and see how its put together. I think that the combo of the track nub and touch screen should work well enough and if the keyboard has a decent wireless range there is the added potential to hook the laptop up to an external display and use the keyboard as a remote. It I'm curious as to what the price point for the 4k laptop will be when it comes out.

I never understood all the hate for 1366x768. I find it perfectly usable on up to 12-inch panels (and most tablets and some laptops are smaller than that). I mean a bump in resolution is always nice (if the OS and the third-party apps have appropriate scaling capabilities) as far as sheer image sharpness is concerned; but what I'd really like to see, is BETTER QUALITY PANELS.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.